Yahoo France reacts to Burkina Faso e-mail death threats

A week ago today, CPJ sent a letter
of concern to President Blaise
Compaoré of Burkina Faso urging his government to investigate a series
of death threats sent in the past year or so via e-mail to independent
journalists there. Using Yahoo France
accounts, senders have boasted about intimidating the press in impunity by
referencing the still-unsolved 1998 murder of investigative journalist Norbert
Zongo.

Well, Yahoo France and French police are now officially on
the case, according to Christophe Pelletier, a spokesman for Yahoo France, who
called me today. I had forwarded to Yahoo France an e-mail that staffers at
the monthly Le Reporter received in their inbox on January 20.

"Within an hour of receiving the information, our legal
experts, who were out of the office at the time, were working remotely to
process this case," Pelletier told me. "We don't know if this is bogus or not,
but we are not taking any chances." He said it was a legal obligation for them
to notify the police whenever a user sends threats through their service.
According to Pelletier, Yahoo France
provided information about the account used to send the most recent messages to
Le Reporter to the French police's Central Office for Combating
Information and Communication Technology Crime, known as OCLCTIC.

For nearly two years now, since CPJ first uncovered e-mail
death threats sent to radio commentator Karim
Sama, Burkina Faso
official investigations have failed to produce any leads or arrests. With the
killers of Zongo still at large, this has reinforced the message that those who
intimidate outspoken voices in the press will go unpunished.